This study examined mother-infant interactions in dyads with a disabled child and the relation between mother-infant interactions and joint attention in these dyads.The study also sought to elucidate the developmental changes in joint attention within normative infant-mother dyads, and to examine the relationship between joint attention and language development. The disabled-child group was comprised of 16 dyads containing children with CP and MR at chronological ages of 11-39 months and developmental ages of 1-24months. Mother-infant interaction was measured by NCAFS/NCATS, and play interaction sessions were also coded with a joint attention schema. Interaction scores were similar to the study's normative dyads, even though mothers of disabled children had high stress in childrearing. There was no consistent relationship between joint attention and mother-infant interactions in the disabled dyads group, however, frequency ofjoint attention in the dyads containing infants with paralyzed limbs was less than those dyads whose infants were without paralysis.The normative group was comprised of a longitudinal sample of 44 dyads, observed at 13 months, 18 months (n=40), and 24 months (n=39). Their play interactions were coded with the joint attention schema. Passive joint attention between mothers and infants increased as infants became older, but coordinated joint attention did not ; this result did not replicate findings of previous studies. However, infants who had frequent joint attention with their mothers in the play interactions had higher linguistic scores in a developmental test at 24 months, a finding consistent with many other studies.Data from the disabled dyads and normative dyads groups were not compared because demographic background and characteristics of both groups were too different for comparative analysis.